


First Taste

by Croik



Category: Dororo (Anime 2019)
Genre: Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 20:17:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21142592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Croik/pseuds/Croik
Summary: Hyakkimaru is still getting used to his ears when Dororo takes him to a small village festival, which leads to a strange encounter with a minor demon holding something of his...





	First Taste

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shadowsapiens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsapiens/gifts).

> Let's pretend there were 13 demons instead of 12, just for now...

Hyakkimaru had known all along that they were heading toward a village. Long before gaining back any of his missing pieces he had learned to sense those strange places where people gathered in their herds, particularly one as lively as this. The living auras that normally would have been dispersed among paths and dwellings had congregated at the center, and they were moving and jostling in irregular rhythms. He had encountered similar occurrences before but never quite grasped their meaning, though it sometimes led to strangers handing him food. That must have been why Dororo was so eager to tug him toward it. 

It wasn’t the same, approaching the gathering this time: now Hyakkimaru could hear the rambling cacophony of the villagers, human voices babbling among piercing whistles and heavy thumps. He could feel when the chill of the autumn wind became dulled by the heat from bonfires, and his bare toes tingled with reverberations rising up from the earth. Dororo was talking to him in her usual string of unintelligible bubbles, though as suspected he could make out promises of food, and the word “festival” repeated several times.

They crossed the threshold into the village, and there everything jumbled and smeared into loathsome noise. The forest was already its own challenge, with rustling leaves and racing streams and the constant nagging of birds, but the village--dozens of humans humans together was _truly_ disturbing. The streets were packed with bodies, jostling Hyakkimaru as he let Dororo lead him through the throngs. All the talking, all the fabric scraping, even just their constant, heaving breath pounded against his fledgling ears and left him dizzy. It had been so easy before, knowing which spaces were occupied and impassible, and which were not. He could always _sense_ where to go. With so much noise everywhere he felt as if he were in a forest of trees packed too tightly together. As much as he trusted Dororo to guide him, he felt as if it was so loud he couldn’t _breathe_.

Hyakkimaru tugged his hand free so he could cover his ears. It helped, but for a moment he was cut adrift, and he bumped into a few villagers before Dororo could snag him by the hem of his robe again. 

“It still hurts, huh?” said Dororo, and she pulled him to the side of the street. “You’ll get used to eventually. Oh! Wait here.”

She let go, and for a few minutes Hyakkimaru was content enough to stay put, trying to adjust to the commotion. When Dororo returned she had food with her: a collection of roasted vegetables and mushrooms gained, he gathered, by generous vendors. She clucked very happily about her find as they ate, though her tone changed to one of ire when she realized Hyakkimaru had finished his sweet potato already.

“You should take your time,” she scolded him. “This is fresh stuff! It won’t always taste this good.”

“Taste,” repeated Hyakkimaru.

“Right!” replied Dororo. “Like this.”

She handed him another roasted mushroom, which he dutifully ate. He even tried to take his time. Try as he might, though, he didn’t understand the reason for her insistence. It was only food, after all, fuel for a fire, and it was difficult to appreciate or even take notice of much else when everything around them swam in churning, unending cacophony.

They continued on in that way for a while, wandering down the different lanes, occasionally accepting gifts from the vendors and even some of the villagers, drunk on the generosity of a good harvest. Hyakkimaru depended almost entirely on Dororo’s hand tugging his to maneuver through the crowd as too many sounds and pressing bodies wore his nerves painfully raw. Was he supposed to get used to this? It was suddenly hard to imagine that he would ever understand or feel at home with these bizarre, gyrating creatures.

Then he heard it: his ears were drawn by the sound of sweet voice barely audible above the rest. A woman’s voice. Even among the din of the crowd the somber melody pierced him and sent his heart racing. It sounded like _her_. It couldn’t have been her. Even so he turned to and fro in search. “Mio?”

Dororo startled beside him. “Huh? No, that’s not--hey, wait!”

By then Hyakkimaru was already moving away. He hurried through the crowds, trying to single out and follow the sound of the singing woman. It took a great deal of focus, but at last the laughter and music fell away, and he traced the voice to an alley away from the main street.

It _was_ a woman, sitting on the step of a quiet building. She had a warm, sweet aura and she was singing a gentle lullaby to a child asleep in her arms. She was so familiar in shape and bearing, her voice a perfect match to his inexperienced ears, and as much as he knew better he still asked, “Mio?”

The woman stopped singing, and she said something, gentle and amused. Hyakkimaru couldn’t make out the words, but when she spoke, he finally realized all at once that she didn’t sound anything like Mio after all. She couldn’t have, because Mio no longer existed in the world. There was only noise and blather and blood, and maybe that was all that would ever be.

Hyakkimaru left the village. It wasn’t that he was fleeing, or that he specifically wanted to leave Dororo behind; he just needed to _breathe_ for a while. He retreated away from the people and their bonfires and found his way up a hillside to the north, where the earth was soft with erosion and the trees were sparse. He sat perched on an outcropping and moved his toes against the grass. He sighed.

Peace. Hyakkimaru breathed in the night air, now cool again, and let it rush through his hair. Goose bumps spread up his exposed skin that he had had for so long now, though still was not entirely accustomed to. Even though the wind and the trees and the distant birds were still more disturbance than he would have preferred, at least the rampage of the festival had dulled to a murmur. He didn’t have to worry about people, and how becoming more like them didn’t seem to be helping him adjust to them any better.

His reprieve did not last long. As adept as Hyakkimaru was at sensing the approach of humans and their flocks, he was keener still at detecting far more sinister creatures. Something unclean was creeping up the hill toward him, and he drew his feet closer in readiness. Had it come from the village? He did not like the idea that he had been too distracted by the festival to notice it closeby, though he _did_ like the idea of a fight. That would certainly cast out the rest of his doubts. Fighting demons always made sense.

But as the creature slunk closer, Hyakkimaru did not draw his blades. There was very little malice in the thing, only a strange, hurried energy, not unlike the autumn wind rushing along the hill. Though roughly the size and shape of a man, it crawled on all fours, and it rustled as if covered in long fur.

The demon spoke, and though Hyakkimaru could not make out the human words, he understood its meaning well enough. “I saw you at the festival,” it said, in a deep and rumbling voice that wasn’t unpleasant. “I saw you there--I was hiding there. I thought you were one of us, at first. Then I realized who you were--who you are--and I thought, _oh, yes, he’s come_.” The demon demon continued closer on soft, fleshy hands and feet. “Come to take back what’s yours from me, like you did the others.”

Hyakkimaru wound tight at the mention. He had met his share of clever and audacious demons, but none yet so far that would brag so openly about deserving his blades. He lifted his hand to his mouth, taking the limb between his teeth so that he could shed the arm in seconds the moment the demon was in range.

But the demon stopped. “Wait,” it said, and suddenly it sounded very much like just a man. “You don’t have to kill me. I could just...give it to you.”

Hyakkimaru bristled and unclenched his teeth. “Give it back,” he demanded.

“I will! I will.” The demon crawled forward one more step. “Promise not to kill me.”

“Give it back,” Hyakkimaru demanded again. Whether the creature deserved death mattered far less than that. “It’s mine.”

“All right, all right. I was going to…”

The demon crawled the rest of the way and closed one hand around Hyakkimaru’s knee. His skin was hot and leathery, and Hyakkimaru flinched but did not retreat. “I thought I was lucky,” the demon said, thoughtful and a little nervous. “When the old one gave it to me, I mean. A real human sacrifice! It was going to make me strong.”

It leaned into Hyakkimaru, and though it wasn’t nearly as large as most of the demons he had fought, its torso was broad and round, and it had to press his knees further apart to get closer. Hyakkimaru shifted his weight to keep from being knocked off his balance, confident that he could still draw any of his blades if necessary.

“It did,” the demon rambled on. “You’re very strong. But my nature got the better of me--I wasted it. I did. So I’ll give it back to you, if you don’t kill me.”

“Hurry,” said Hyakkimaru, and the demon clapped its hand over his mouth.

He started to rear back, and he even had his right arm partially removed before he stopped short, distracted by an unfamiliar sensation. Something was in his mouth, something that wasn’t there at the same time. The demon’s skin pressed tight against his lips seemed for a moment as if it were already passed his teeth and on his tongue, in a feeling he couldn’t relate to anything he’d experienced before. It made him think of sweat and hot coals and mud, and his stomach lurched. The same way that rain had imparted chaos on his ears, so too did the demon’s skin place pandemonium on his tongue. 

Hyakkimaru finally slapped the hand back, and he started to untangle himself from the demon. It gripped his robe and wouldn’t let go. “Wait,” it said, and something else touched Hyakkimaru’s lips that once against stilled him. “Try this.”

It was a piece of sweet potato, just like the one he had shared with Dororo earlier, and yet it was completely different: not just warm and nourishing, but...gentle, like soft earth beneath his new, bare toes; rich like an echo in a deep cave. He didn’t know how else to describe this new sense, and he rolled the potato around and around in his mouth, savoring it as his mouth grew wet with saliva.

“Human food is tasty, isn’t it?” said the demon, and when it pressed a grilled mushroom to his lips, he accepted gladly. “I’ve tried as much of it as I can. It’s good, right? I’m glad I got to taste it.”

Hyakkimaru mumbled a distracted agreement. “Tasty,” he said, and he sucked on the mushroom until it had melted apart in his mouth. He noticed but didn’t care that the demon was leaning into him again, its round belly nestled against his, its broad, sturdy palm braced against his thigh. The creature had kept its word, after all--this new and wonderful sensation belonged to him again, as it always should have. More importantly, it kept giving him things to eat: next was a pear, and when Hyakkimaru bit into it, he finally understood the word _sweet_ Dororo had once tried to teach him, and his tongue chased every drop of its cool juice that threatened to escape down his chin.

“Yes,” said the demon, softly, very close to its ear. “Yes, isn’t it good? Isn’t it tasty?” Its breath steamed out in a long sigh, and Hyakkimaru could taste that, too, so he turned his head away. “I’m glad I got to taste it, thanks to you. Taste it like humans do. But it never did quench the hunger.”

The demon knocked the pear out of Hyakkimaru’s hand, and he bristled with irritation, but it was soon replaced with another, handsomer prize: a sliver of grilled pork, tender and oozing. The first touch of it to Hyakkimaru’s tongue had him almost shivering, and he sucked it into his mouth with ferocity enough to catch two of the demon’s fingers at first. It was _good_ and ripe and in a way powerful, and Hyakkimaru realized he had never truly known hunger until then. His teeth tearing through the meat was more _right_ when paired with the savory succulence than it had ever been.

“The meat is the best,” said the demon knowingly, and its stomach growled. “It takes a demon to really _know_ how much the best it is.” It tugged at the back of Hyakkimaru’s robe so that the fabric fell away from slope of his collar. “But I knew that, even before I had your tongue. I’m sure _you’ll _taste even better now, and maybe, _finally_, quench this hunger.”

It pressed its wide, wet lips to the delicate skin of Hyakkimaru’s throat. Its breath stank and it’s teeth blunt and gnarled. Maybe it thought it was being subtle enough to avoid raising Hyakkimaru’s ire, but its aura had changed, and its intentions were more than clear.

Hyakkimaru whipped his left arm to the side, and the prosthetic came off easily. The demon lurched back before Hyakkimaru could strike--its teeth scraped against his flesh, almost enough to draw blood--but it was still ponderous, too soft from sixteen years of gluttony. Hyakkimaru pursued it along the slope and kicked its foot out from underneath it, so that it tumbled until caught by a rocky outcropping.

“W-Wait,” it stuttered as Hyakkimaru shoved his foot into its chest. “I’m just so hungry—” But Hyakkimaru sank his blade into the creature’s throat and severed its head.

Hyakkimaru headed back up the hill to retrieve his wooden arm. As he slotted it back into place a chill shivered across his skin, as the night’s cool air blew across the damp spot on his neck. He scraped the collar of his robe against it until the feeling went away. He stood there for a while, unsure where to go or what to do.

His other felled enemies he’d met with some level of triumph--the thrill of besting one of those that had wronged him and wanted him dead. This pathetic demon, whoever or whatever it had been, was nothing like that. His missing piece had done nothing to strengthen or improve its meager life, which angered him more than ever with the pointlessness of him ever being denied what was his, but there was something pitiful about it as well. He might have spared its life, if not for the teeth. Had it lived in the village for so long without anyone knowing, only to gamble its life away for a few bites of meat? He didn’t understand.

Hyakkimaru scraped his bare foot against the cool grass. It tickled. And then he remembered, he had gambled and lost more than his own life to feel just that.

Dororo called out to him. She spoke in a flurry of unintelligible accusations, and a few he could make out perfectly clear. “Don’t go anywhere without me,” they all meant. He nodded his apology and let her take his hand, grateful that the demon’s corpse had long since disintegrated.

Dororo started to tug him back toward the village, but even a few steps in that direction reminded Hyakkimaru too acutely of the chatter and thumping, and he wasn’t sure he could withstand it any longer. The last thing he wanted was to be around more humans, especially ones that couldn’t recognize a demon in their midst. “Loud,” he said, resisting Dororo’s guidance just enough to make his point clear.

“Still too much, huh? Okay.” Dororo changed directions, leading them on a less direct path down the hill. “I’ll find us a quiet place. I even found us some rice balls! They’ll make you feel better.”

Hyakkimaru nodded as he let Dororo pull him along. There was still much to get used to and consider, but for the moment, at least he could focus on wanting to know how a rice ball tasted.


End file.
